Ain't Got No Epistemic Humility

In an article in Integral Review, Zachary Stein discussed epistemic humility. He asks, "How can collaborative and self-critical knowledge production be advanced when certain types of contributions (or contributors) are systematically devalued?"  He later comments that, "The dismissal of an argument, belief, or orientation solely because it is suspected to be the product of a certain developmental level reflects a profound lack of clarity about the normative aspects of human development."   

Western scientific medicine has no epistemic humility and values only its own methods. Based on a certain method of creating medicine, if a medicine is not made that way, then it is not valid because it is not made the way that their belief system says it should be made. It is using the assumption of validity of its model to prove the validity of its model. Then degrading the value of traditional medical systems, because they don't fit into its model.

Recently (5th October 2015), the Nobel Prize in Medicine was shared awarded to Tu Youyou for 'discovering' an anti-malarial medicine from the herb Artemisia. Dr. Tu is a chief professor at the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine. She drew from the Chinese Materia Medica about the benefits of Artemisia and discovered a more beneficial extraction and delineated the active ingredients. The Traditional Chinese Medicine community celebrated the validation of the healing potential of their herbs being recognized.

At the announcementof the Nobel Prize, the first reporter, who was from China, asked for the 'significance' of the researchers role in incorporating Chinese herbal medicine into her treatment. The reply by the committee was that it was well established that the herb may have effects on fever, but Dr. Tu discovered the active ingredient and how to extract it, which is what they considered the paradigm shift that allowed for large scale production and clinical testing.

The second question, asked by an Indian, was whether this indicated the way western medical science looks at ancient medical systems is changing, or whether this was an acknowledgement. The answer was that there are many sources to get ideas to develop drugs, and the long experience with these herbs may inspire research, but that we are not going to use the old herbs as they are (said with a derogatory smirk). Then the committee added that there were sophisticated methods used to get the compounds from this products and they elucidated their structures as well. They stressed they cared about active compounds not the plants. That the final medicine was a concentration and had a mix of synthetic photoactivation substances. 

The Nobel Committee were obviously a little stressed in their response; defensive; more than other questions. They actively did not want to acknowledge traditional herbal medicine. Both of the first reporters were looking for an acknowledgement, or you could say an appreciation for the source this medicine was sourced from.

This particular herb is used for a particular illness and this extract proves that the herb works, which implies that other traditional herbs will also have components that work. Which thereby infers that the practitioners of herbal medicine are not quacks, but practicing a traditional and valid system of medicine. This is what the members of the Nobel Committee could not acknowledge, and so this is why they became frustrated with the questions- because it can "be  inspirational to develop new drugs but we’re not going to use the old herbs as they are." Because if you use them as they are, you can't make as much money selling them- people could just grow them themselves.

In the last few years, there has been clinical evidence of resistance developing to Artimisinin. We might just have to go back to the pure herb mixed with a few supporting herbs. Will they give a Nobel Prize to the person who shows the mix of herbs that don't need to be extracted and mixed with synthetic compounds? 

Update:
See also January 2019 National Geographic article: How ancient remedies are changing modern medicine